Alternative to Crestron home entertainment system?

Question

Hello

Can you suggest alternative to Crestron, which is a bit cheaper.

(don't mean Sony etc) Crestron want to charge $210,000 for the complete installation of a 2 story house....

thank you

Answer 1

Whole house AV distribution is a advanced topic. The installation and setup is a lot of the price.  You probably want to find a different custom install company for a competitive bid.

EDIT:

Go back to Crestron and tell them the bid is too much. Give them a budget to work with and let them revise what they can do.

Custom places often quote their best (and most profitable) suggestions first.  This is the start of the negotiation.  Dont be afraid to push back and change what you want them to do. (You may have asked for 1 little thing that added $50,000 to the price.)  Look at the details.

HOWEVER:

Do not play the game of trying to replace the electronics with "Best Buy" versions to negotiate.  Making the system easy to use depends on subtle features that YOU dont know about.  All receivers/speakers/televisions are not the same.  Let the installers use brands they know work well together.

You should also look at the work involved.  Wiring the bedroom to see the same audio & video thats showing in the Theater room sounds cool - but the cost is $40,000.  You could put in a stand-alone system in the bedroom for $5,000.

People think that whole-house distribution from high-end equipment in 1 room is desirable. But the economics are such that you could setup 5 totally separate theater systems in separate rooms for less.

Check the details of the bid.

Answer 2

Many alternatives of course. First if I were designing your system I would want to know

1- Who is using the system? Not just a list of people, but what are their habits? Where you you get your music, movies?

If you just listen to CDs or  internet radio  or XM that is one thing but do you want to be able to play multiple streams of music anywhere in the house? Do you have an iPod, Game systems, DirecTV. Do you want to hide all of the elecronics in 1 closet or spread throughout the house. The integrator charging this much better know your entertainment and entertaining habits better than you do.

2- Do you want instant access to movies anywhere in the house? If so you can look at companies like Kaleidescape (Expensive) or MediaMax( A little less) or Escient (Much Cheaper for different methods of attaining this. If movie server is part of the deal have your integrator offer you alternative ones.

I am assuming the price is for the entire system.(i.e. speakers, distributed audio system, distributed video, TVs and so forth) If so nickel and diming won't change the price much. It doesn't make sense to get the system but get low quality components and switching to mid price components often don't lower the price as much as you might think.

You may have to give up something. Crestron Touchscreens may cost as much as $10K apiece. Knock out a few of those and you may be getting somewhere.

3- Do you want Lighting, Heating and/or Security as part of the package. Security doesn't have to cost too much an interface to an existing security system + some programming may be all you need. Heating may be a similar scenario. Lighting however can be an expensive proposal. People don't realise just how many light switches there are in a home, especially newer one. For an automated lighting system to work, every light switch you want to be controlled  needs to be swapped for an automatable one. Expensive whichever method of control you use. Lutron is probably what was bid but ask if another brand is available. Something that uses z-wave to control might be advantageous. Ask for a system that doesn't control every single switch as an option.

4- Contact some other automation companies and they can get you in touch with a local integrator with experience in their control systems.  Life Ware, Colorado v-Net, Control-4, HAI, Xantech all make automation systems for less and others are joining all the time. G.E. and OnQ are joining the fray with even cheaper alternatives.

Voice your concerns to the integrator. If you were referred to them by Crestron they may feel some obligation to Crestron (Which is probably THE most expensive along with AMX) and bid only that. If that is all they do they may recommend someone else that offers something less expensive.

Check Cedia.org for a list of companies qualified to design a system in your area.

Answer 3

In addition to the above.

You have to really avaluate what it is you want done.

If you want your whole house including lighting and appliances, heating, AC and all of these things, it is not going to be cheap.

I would never pay 210 grand for "conveniece". I would not charge anyone that much either. look for a good reputable company with low overhead. Places with many employees and fancy show rooms have tons of overhead.

Look for a small outfit.

Check out "Control4" as an alternative to Crestron. There are quite a few others but not all of them do whole house automation.